Field-Testing the WHO Child Growth Standards in Four Countries

Field-testing the WHO child growth standards in four countries.

In April 2006 the WHO released a set of growth standards for children from birth to the age of 5 y. Prior to their release, the standards were field-tested in 4 countries. The main objective was to compare children's length/height-for-age and weight-for-length/height based on the new standards with clinician assessments of the same children. The study sampled children <5-y-old attending well-ch...

WHO child growth standards.

comprehensive review of the uses and interpretation of anthropometric references. The review concluded that the NCHS/WHO growth reference, which had been recommended for international use since the late 1970s, did not adequately represent early childhood growth and that new growth curves were necessary. The World Health Assembly endorsed this recommendation in 1994. The WHO Multicentre Growth R...

WHO Child Growth Standards

The New Who Child Growth Standards

Adequate nutrition during the early years of life is of paramount importance for growth, development and long-term health through adulthood. It is during infancy and early childhood that irreversible faltering in linear growth and cognitive deficits occur (1, 2). Poor nutrition during this critical period contributes to significant morbidity and mortality (3). Similarly, the increasing prevalen...

Pilot testing of WHO child growth standards in Chandigarh: implications for India's child health programmes.

OBJECTIVE To compare the prevalence of underweight as calculated from Indian Academy of Paediatrics (IAP) growth curves (based on the Harvard scale) and the new WHO Child Growth Standards. METHODS We randomly selected 806 children under 6 years of age from 45 primary anganwadi (childcare) centres in Chandigarh, Punjab, India, that were chosen through multistage stratified random sampling. Chi...